There Shall Be No Needy, Part 7: Society, Heal Thyself!

The importance of providing health care is such an assumption in the Jewish culture I grew up in that I was surprised to learn it was ever debated--but that just goes to show you how in Judaism, everything is open to debate! In chapter 7 of There Shall Be No Needy,  Rabbi Jill Jacobs gives respect to the minority view that it is up to God to heal sickness (not wounds), or that once upon a time in the age of prophecy that was the case. She rightly states that the overwhelming sentiment is that medicine is a mitzvah, for at least two reasons:

1. We were made in the image of God. Whoever heals a human being is doing a good thing on a cosmic scale!
2. Our bodies are our most valuable possessions. If it's a mitzvah to return my book, my coat, or my donkey that I have lost, what a greater good deed it is to return my health!

Ordinarily we don't pay someone for doing a mitzvah. As she has established in earlier chapters, however, rabbinic opinion is that Jewish communities can organize and regulate themselves for the sake of tikkun olam, which in this case means "to establish a health care system in which doctors and other potential lifesavers feel motivated to operate at their highest capacity, and in which patients can be expected to afford their treatments." But as she remarks:

These texts are especially troubling to read in contemporary American, where an inefficient and profit-driven health care system simultaneously makes it difficult for doctors to treat uninsured patients without risking their own livelihoods and prevents many patients from being able to afford needed medical care and medicine. (170-171)

As usual, Jacobs holds the U.S. to the standards she can find in the Jewish tradition and finds it wanting. Just to be clear, the Affordable Care Act passed the year after this book was published, yet I suspect it would not fundamentally alter her assessment: she is arguing that as Jews, we must demand much more from our society. In fact, she implies that any system that involves paying health insurance companies and having them make profit-driven decisions about health care is not acceptable by Jewish standards.